What is a patent? Is a patent necessary?

So first the question comes “What is a Patent?” Well! A patent is a set of exclusive rights which are given by a state or an organization to a person who has invented something, for a defined duration of time. A patent is given in exchange of the person disclosing the invention to the public. Now the question comes, “Is a Patent Necessary?” In today’s world, it is definitely necessary as without a patent anybody can copy your invention and claim it to be his/ hers.

For example, if you have got a manufactured a printed circuit board; anybody can extract the PIC Microcontroller Code via a programming adapter and use the same code in a duplicated hardware. In this case, the ways which you employ for code protection act as a security that nobody can copy your code. Patents work in the same way. Once you have the patent and you disclose your invention in public you can exploit your invention for the time period of the patent and nobody else has rights over your invention except you. Following are some reasons which make a patent necessary:

By getting the exclusive rights to your product; since nobody else can make the same product; you gain a strong hold over the market and there is considerably no competition. Hence, you only are the player for the product in the market.

You garner more profit.

Since you enjoy the exclusive rights to your invention; you can use the same for commercial purposes. As you are the only one who will be dealing with that product so is quite obvious that you will get higher returns on your investment. So with a patent; profit is there on the charts.

Generates a positive image of your organization

Since your company has patented its invention; this definitely means to the prospective customer or the client that your company has a high level of expertise and enough capacity to deal with technical requirements of the client. Hence, patents help to generate a positive image of your company. All investors, stakeholders, prospective customers get interested to work with you once you have a patent. Consequently, the value of your organization increases in the market.

Cross-licensing.

Let me explain this as an example. A company C sues company D for using the product on which C has the patent. So company D can persuade the company C to drop the case and in return D gives exclusive rights for some of the products, which are patented by D, to C, and in return letting the company D to use the patented invention of company C, on which company C has sued company D. So this exchange of licenses, called cross-licensing, is possible only if you have a patent over your invention.

About the author

Having a keen interest in the field of technology has given Ruchi Gupta a very strong foothold in the digital market scene. She has been reading up on a lot of different news and helps readers by proving the most useful tips in this regard. She is a well-known blogger. Contact the author.